February news (sort of!)

Seems like a long time since I wrote anything here. I came back from the wedding, and straight into a real firestorm at work. The normal pre-first semester start hecticness, added to the extra intensity of a big software upgrade, followed by difficult to solve database problems ... All of this got us very behind in the work that needs doing before the start of Semester 1. Ended up having to work overtime today (Saturday) to try and catch up. At least it was 'official', so we are getting paid overtime.

I've also managed to damage some muscle deep behind my shoulders (cannot remember its name  my osteopath told me!) a few days ago. And how did I do this? By practicing/trying to do jump-backs! (One of my new year's resolutions!) Sadly I've been forbidden to do any yoga (or go to the gym) until after I've seen the osteopath again next Wednesday. She did give me some exercises to do to try and strengthen those muscles, which I am obediently doing!

And for my upcoming overseas trip (in around September/October), I'm just waiting/hoping for an ashtanga workshop to appear in Bali or Thailand that I can go to on my way back from Europe, before going ahead and firming up dates and booking flights.  Although, knowing my past experience of trying to organise everything, I should probably not hold my breath waiting for everything to line up!

The Wedding (part 2)

Where has the week gone I wonder?! I've been incredibly busy at work and I guess I've just been coming home and collapsing, with no thought of blogging or anything!!

So, I promised myself (and any readers who might be interested, though I know it's not really that exciting reading about a wedding of two people you don't know!) that I'd write about the wedding, just to keep the memories in my head, or on paper/somewhere! Just to get everyone straight with who's who: Jo and Emma were the ones getting married. Jo is my nephew - one of two children my sister Vivien had, before she died of cancer back in the late 80s, when the boys were around 6 and 4. John is their father. He re-married several years later to Gina who had two sons herself, slightly older than my 2 nephews. And her mother is a 3rd grandmother to them! So it's all a nice extended family - normal these days!


The ceremony was actually held in the beautiful house of Jo's other grandmother (John's mother) in the late afternoon. This picture shows John in the room before most people started arriving. Emma walked down the aisle to a Scottish piper playing Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes (just outside on the verandah)!! It was quite thrilling actually (this is my Scottish roots coming out!) although amusing because Emma's parents are Latvian - no Scottish there! It's all coming from the other side of the family! My mother is/was Scottish, and my sister Vivien was born in Scotland.

- John adjusting Bim's bowtie (one of his stepsons)



- The bride and groom

After the ceremony we all mingled on the verandah and in the garden, drinking delicious French champagne ... Then Peter, my other nephew/Jo's brother, gave the best man's speech. I found it highly amusing that he had his notes for his speech on his iPhone and was reading them from there!!

After many many wedding photos we all moved off to Catalina, a restaurant on the harbour at Rose Bay. The whole restaurant had been taken over for the reception. This photo (below) is a bit misty but I think it's really lovely - Jo and Emma entering the restaurant through a shower of rose petals!

We ate a delicious meal (I had a wonderful fish dish followed by creme brulee - my absolute favourite dessert!) and ate wedding cake, had more speeches and danced to a great jazz band. It was a really lovely evening - beautiful day in total. And Vivien was remembered and talked about by her children, John and us all, and we all knew how proud she would have been of her boys!

The Wedding (part 1)!

Can't remember if I mentioned the big family wedding that was happening in early January. My nephew Jo and Emma's wedding happened in Sydney on Friday before last - I went down for a long weekend for it and it was a really beautiful wedding on a lovely summer Sydney day. But I've been so busy at work last week I haven't had time to blog. Although I did find time to upload photos to Facebook and Flickr in the evenings. And then I've spent most of today making this iPhoto slideshow of photos from the wedding (mine and a couple of other people's) - and then uploading it to YouTube! First time I've done that ... Mostly as a present for Jo and Emma, although no doubt a lot of friends and family will be interested to see it too.



Now it's late and I have to go to bed ... but I will blog more about the wedding (before I forget things!) in the next few days ... :)

Looking forward and looking back

It's a new year ...  a time for new beginnings, new focus, starting afresh ...

I don't really know if it's because of getting older (oh, surely not?!!) or because of having had a potentially life-threatening illness (non-Hodgkins Lymphoma), going through chemo and the recovery from that, the knowledge that remission isn't a 'cure' per se, and that I may well have to go through some sort of treatment again sometime in the future ... But whatever the reason, I do seem to engage more with the 'new beginnings' feel of each new year. I think about setting goals (new years resolutions) for the year, and look back on the previous year and what happened, how it went.

I had a look back through my January 2009 blogs to see what I'd aimed for. Before I go there, I should 'reprise' some of the things that were affecting me, health and otherwise last year.

Last January I was only a year and a bit out of chemo/recovery. I was also suffering from lots of bronchial infections/coughing fits and had only just started having the monthly IV-IG infusions the previous month. It took till May before the infusions had me turning the corner and feeling well again without the help of antibiotics.

The other big thing that happened to me last year was the whole 'restructure' thing we went through at work - starting from around September 2008 and culiminating in March 2009. It was incredibly stressful for all of us - fighting for our jobs as we were. Ultimately we knew it was a losing battle, but we really didn't want to roll over and let them 'do the dirty' on us without a fight. So we fought them every step of the way, with very few wins. But we stood up for ourselves. In the end I took another job at the University in a different department (the IT dept) on the main St Lucia campus. And I have to say it was a wonderful decision, and the outcome has been really good for me. I've been lifted out of my comfort zone (a very deep rut!) and stretched in many ways.

The only downside has been more travelling and a longer day. And less opportunities for lunchtime yoga.

So, what I was wanting to do with 2009 was see Maharaji (and I did, at Amaroo!) and try and put more into my yoga practice. I think I have been reasonably successful with the yoga aspiration too, considering all the health and travel constrictions 2009 had put on me - although it has been hard to find the time during the week.

And what about 2010? What aspirations and hopes do I have for this brand new year ... Good health of course, I always aspire and hope for that these days!

I do really hope (and intend to do what I can) to see Maharaji again this year too. Once a year isn't much but living in Australia it's usually the best one can hope for.

And in yoga - well, I've kind of been inspired by this YouTube video on jumpbacks and jump-throughs. I have never been able to jump back at all, but looking at that video, I think maybe I might be able to if I keep practising! So, this is what I am aiming for! To be able to jump back (and make a start on the jump-throughs!) And I really want to do this by September when I'm planning to go on a big overseas trip! So, we shall see what transpires.

(following para added a couple of days later as I forgot it when I was writing originally!)
The other thing I really want to do this year is make more of an effort to  socialise, to invite people over for Sunday lunches! I need to be pushed/push myself to do this because I'm a bit shy / lazy !! But I was a bit too reclusive last year - or didn't make much of an effort! I mostly just went out to the movies with a friend, and saw friends at Book Club. I need to do better this year - for my own sake!!

I wish for good health and happiness for everyone, especially family and friends. And a friend on Facebook who I've known since the 70s posted this today and I'm going to copy it here - it really took me back to those sweet and heady days! I wish it for everyone ... :)

May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you

And the pure light within you, guide your way on ...

(Incredible String Band - 'A Very Cellular Song')

(I do of course sing it to myself rather than 'read' it!!)

Middle-of-the-night blues

I think it shows what a wiped-out state I've arrived at over the past couple of weeks, that last night I woke up at 3.30am totally depressed and in a state, convinced I had far too many things to do/organise before Christmas, and too little time! And I lay awake for at least half an hour with all this stuff going round and round (and round!) in my head, unable to get back to sleep. All the time a part of me knew that I most likely would not be feeling like this in the morning, but that made no difference to my feverish, worried brain!

Why do I do this to myself? Of course I can organise what I need to do in the next couple of days - I'm well on the way to that already (nearly lunchtime on Tuesday!) I can understand this sort of thing happening when big/bad things are happening in my life, but ... really, Christmas preparations?!!! All I can do is put it down to being tired and run out of energy at the end of the year. Thank goodness where I work give us the time between Christmas and New Year off for 'free'. So when I stop at lunchtime tomorrow, I'm not back at work till the 4th January ... should be able to 'recharge the batteries' in that time!

I've also arranged to spend a few days in late January with a friend who lives near Byron Bay - and very near the beach!  So that should be really lovely! Hmm, I wonder if I can drop in at Dena's shala while I'm down there. Now that'd be wonderful - must investigate!

Time of year busy-ness!

Well, after last weekend I almost need a day off to recover! I think it must be a combination of the lead-up to the 'holiday season', plus I realise I haven't had much time off at all this past year. And it just seems like there's always heaps of things to do, Christmas parties to go to at this time of the year!

On Saturday I found myself getting up early to do shopping, go to the library, etc. Then driving half an hour west to go to our Book Club Christmas meeting/lunch. Which was really nice - we'd had The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - the first book of the wonderful Millennium trilogy, sadly published posthumously, by Stieg Larsson. I've got the 2nd book as an audiobook (thank you audible.co.uk!) and if I don't get the 3rd one for Christmas I'm going straight out to buy it!! Highly recommended - everyone loved it! (And I caught a bit of the ABC's 'First Tuesday Night Bookclub' program last night on TV. Everyone was recommending books for holiday reading and I noticed these books came up on quite a few lists!)

But anyway, then I had to drive over an hour and a quarter in the opposite direction to get to my yoga class. And it was really humid - and I've never sweated so much in a class!! Followed by my (normal) 45 minutes drive back home again. And I'm still trying to track down this wonderful instrumental version of arti that they were playing in class a couple of weeks back! Richard can't quite get the info right for me to find it on iTunes ... (Premie readers will know what I'm talking about!!)

Yesterday - Sunday - I was supposed to go to another Christmas party - and I really would have loved to but ... I was completely knackered and just couldn't! I did however manage to make it to my friend Helen's art exhibition opening at the Ipswich Art Gallery late in the afternoon. Could only stay for about 20 minutes before leaving to go home to collapse again! Lovely watercolours from her recent long South American holiday ...

Ah well - not long now!

The Good and the Bad!

Well, good and bad to report on! I'll start off with the bad! As part of the government's attempt to stimulate the Australian economy they have been offering 'free' roof insulation to all home-owners - up to a certain limit. Well, my house is notoriously badly insulated - hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I'd always been told that the cathedral ceilings that are throughout the whole house are very difficult/impossible to insulate but when I went and enquired again, I was thrilled to hear they had some new type of 'blow-in' insulation that could be used, and was covered by the government's insulation rebate.

So, yesterday was the big day. But ... when they arrived they took one look at my ceilings and said - no, we can't do that! After lots of to-ing and fro-ing yesterday and today, it turns out that there's more than one type of cathedral ceiling, and the type I have (with the beams exposed inside the house) can't be insulated that way - there's only about 38mm space between the ceiling lining and the corrugated iron roofing. Big sigh!!

Ah, but the good news ... !
Today I saw my specialist, having had extensive blood tests on Monday. And counts are looking really good!

White cell count   4.6   (normal range 4.0 - 11.0)
Neutrophils   2.7   (normal range 2.0 - 7.5)
Platelets   155   (normal range 150-450)

Platelets were in normal range for the first time, probably in 2-3 years!! And Dr B said nothing to worry about - everything is normal, and as it should be.

And so really, that totally outweighs any disappointment I might have had about the insulation. There are much more important things in life ...  :)